


Years

by AdaMarina



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: open-ended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:08:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15218849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdaMarina/pseuds/AdaMarina
Summary: Donald is fourteen years old. He has everything to live for and nothing to die for. He’s not ready to die. He’s not prepared to die.But time changes everything.





	Years

He’s 14 years old and has no idea how he’s gotten into this situation.

Tied up in a rope and held dangling over the side of the cliff, the waves churning around the rocks far below, there is only one thing the child knows; he doesn’t want to die.

“Uncle Scrooge!” he cries, watching as his uncle and sister came to a stop just a few feet from the witch. Della looks frightened and Uncle Scrooge looks determined, and Donald knows his uncle would never let him fall.

Nothing could go wrong on an adventure with Uncle Scrooge.

“Let him go, Magica!”

“Hand over your number one dime and we’ll talk, McDuck!”

Donald is fourteen years old. He has everything to live for and nothing to die for. He’s not ready to die. He’s not prepared to die.

He doesn’t.

Uncle Scrooge almost hands the dime over, but at the last moment he kicks her off the cliff and catches Donald before he can plummet to his death.

He was safe with Uncle Scrooge.

* * *

Things begin to take a turn after this incident, Donald can’t help but notice. Uncle Scrooge begins speaking more to Della, less to Donald. Della becomes his main partner, it seems. She’s more adventurous, less likely to ask to be saved, more likely to save herself than Donald is. She’s more likely to throw her life away for the good of others.

She’s more like Scrooge than Donald could ever be, and the older they get the more obvious it becomes.

Donald is not like Della. He cannot be like Della. So he doesn’t try, no matter how often Uncle Scrooge tries to push him into that role. Instead he tries to find his own thing- his own place, outside of his uncle and sister. An identity of his own, rather than just Uncle Scrooge’s nephew adventuring partner.

He’s fifteen when he becomes an avenger, and sixteen when he becomes a smalltown hero with the help of a genius middle schooler. At seventeen he meets Uno and begins to fight a more galactic threat, rather than petty criminals and mutants. At eighteen Gyro steps down, and Uno becomes his sole confidante and his closest friend.

His adventuring and relationships are strained. He puts his hero life first, and through it he learns to be selfless, like Della. He doesn’t realize it. He doesn’t realize everything is slipping between his fingers, but even if he had he wouldn’t have changed it. Heroes make sacrifices, and he is willing to make that sacrifice.

He’s nineteen years old, he has everything to live for and something to die for. He’s not ready to die, but he is prepared to die.

He doesn’t.

* * *

He loses Uno when he’s twenty-two, the AI shut down by his creator. Donald mourns but moves on. There’s no time to linger on his friend’s apparent death when the world was in danger.

When he’s twenty-four, he loses everything and his entire world comes crashing down.

He thought they were safe with Uncle Scrooge. He was so sure they would be safe, Uncle Scrooge would never let anything happen to them.

So why wasn’t Della moving?

_I’ve taken the Spear of Selene,_  she had written, and they followed, chased her, trying to stop her.

They are too late.

“Della!” Donald cries, reaching out to her. But Uncle Scrooge stops him as the ground begins to shake, the spear still in Della’s loosened fist glowing and trembling. There’s a flash of light and then she’s gone.

Donald thought they were safe with Uncle Scrooge. That Uncle Scrooge would never let anything happen to them.

“Why didn’t you do something?!”

“There was nothin’ we could do.”

They don’t speak again for ten years. Donald takes the children- Della’s children- and leaves, leaves his old life and leaves his uncle.

They wouldn’t be safe with Uncle Scrooge. He wouldn’t protect them the way Donald thought he’d protect Della.

He doesn’t want them to disappear, too.

He’s twenty-four years old, he has something to live for and nothing to die for. He’s ready to die, but he isn’t prepared to die.

He doesn’t.

* * *

He’s twenty-seven when he realizes those boys have become his whole world.

They don’t fill the hole where Della used to be, but he loves them with everything he has. He wants to protect them. He wants them to be safe.

He never tells them about Scrooge. He tells them very little about Della. He tells them nothing of his own past. Being children, they don’t really ask questions- they aren’t very interested in how their uncle used to be. After all, the only Donald they’ve ever known is  _Uncle Donald._

That is the only Donald he wants them to know. He doesn’t want them to know Adventurer Donald. He doesn’t want them to know Superhero Donald. He doesn’t want them to know Avenger Donald.

He just wants to be Uncle Donald.

Scrooge was never content to just be Uncle Scrooge, and that had been their downfall.

Driving around town he doesn’t do what his parents or Scrooge did. He doesn’t point at buildings and say what they  _used_ to be. He doesn’t bring up the past, ever. It keeps the boys from being curious. Things are the way they’ve always been, as far as the triplets know.

He can’t keep a job. Sometimes it’s his natural bad luck. Sometimes it’s his clumsiness. Sometimes it’s because his employer finds out he’s Scrooge McDuck’s nephew.

He can’t keep a job, but that’s alright. He makes sure his boys are taken care of and stocks up on food when they do have money, so that when they run out of money they still have something to eat.

He’s thirty-two years old, and he has something to live for and nothing to die for. He’s not ready to die, and he isn’t prepared to die.

He doesn’t.

* * *

He’s thirty-four years old and has a vague idea of how he ended up in this situation.

Tied up in a rope and held dangling over the side of that familiar cliff, the waves churning around the rocks far below, Donald can only feel a strange calm washing over him.

He’s been in worse situations, so when Scrooge and the children run over, determination and anger in their eyes, he doesn’t call out to them, doesn’t ask them to save him.

Magica laughs. “All that magic and I forgot the best way to get to you is through your family,” she muses, not even glancing at Donald. This time she’s on her broom, physically holding Donald- far out of Scrooge’s reach.

“Let him go, Magica!” Dewey is the one who yells, running to the edge of the cliff.

“Dewey!” Scrooge grabs Dewey and pulls him away from the edge, and Donald feels a painful lump forming in his throat.

They were safe with Scrooge after all.

Scrooge won’t let anything bad happen to them. He cares. He’s learned.

“Alright, Magica,” Scrooge says dangerously, eyes flashing as he looks at the witch. “I’ll give ye the dime, just put Donald back on the ground!”

“The dime first,” Magica hisses, too aware of Scrooge’s tricks.

Donald sees Scrooge’s hand twitch, and from the corner of his eye he sees Magica’s grin twist.

He knows with a certainty unlike any he’s felt before that giving Magica the dime would be the worst choice in the history of ever.

With a calm he isn’t sure he really feels, he says, “Uncle Scrooge.”

His uncle pauses, surprised by Donald’s words- his tone. It isn’t accusing. It isn’t bitter. It isn’t a reminder of all his failings as Donald’s childhood guardian.

It simply is his name.

_Uncle Scrooge._

“It’s alright,” Donald says, and Webby understands before anyone else.

“Uncle Donald!” she shrieks a second before Donald pulls his feet back and slams them against Magica’s broom. He can’t hear the others’ screams over the sound of wind rushing past his ears as Magica releases him in an attempt to steady her broom, leaving Donald to plummet down to the waves below.

He’s thirty-four years old. He has everything to live for and everything to die for. He’s not ready to die, but he is prepared to die.

For his family.


End file.
